


Medicine

by hushlittlewolf



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, cannon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hushlittlewolf/pseuds/hushlittlewolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claudia Stilinski’s goodbye to her husband. Based on Medicine by Daughter</p>
            </blockquote>





	Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> What can i say? Heard the song, cried, wrote the fic. I'm sorry.

It’s late one afternoon in November when Claudia looks at her husband and somehow knows it’s the last time she is ever going to see him. She knows it deep down in her bones, however brittle and broken they now may be. The realization steals her breath away, and even though she has been preparing for this moment since her doctor walked into the examination room and said the word  _cancer,_ it still breaks her heart. Tears cloud her eyes, and she can’t help herself from reaching around the sleeping form of her son—oh god  _Stiles—_ and taking the hand of her husband. 

John starts out of his shallow doze, bloodshot blue eyes blinking open and settling unsteadily on her face. “Clauds?” he murmurs, the nickname that only he ever calls her, and Claudia suddenly wants to cry and scream at the unfairness of it all. She loves this man in front of her so  ** _much._** Why can’t she stay with him just a little while longer?

 “Sorry,” she whispers instead, mindful of Stiles snoring against her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  _I don’t mean to leave you,_ she didn’t say. John shakes his head and comes fully awake. He stretches his arms over his head, and Claudia takes in the state of him: darkly circled eyes, unshaven jaw, and wrinkled deputy’s uniform. She wants nothing more than to soothe the lines of sadness and worry from his face.

“It’s ok,” he whispers back. He gives her a small, tired smile. “I love waking up to you sweetheart.”

Claudia smiles, watery and strained, and doesn’t mention how this is the last time. “When does your next shift start?” she asks instead. Her husband blinks and squints down at his watch, an old anniversary present.

“Bout 45 minutes.” He glances down at the shorn head of their son, nestled against Claudia’s side. “Guess I should get the kiddo home huh?” 

Desperation seizes the dying woman, and she hugs Stiles tighter to her. “Give him a few more minutes,” she begs.  _Give me these final precious seconds._ John hums and squeezes her hand, leans over and presses a sweet kiss to the top of her head. Claudia turns away from him gently.

“You know how I don’t like that,” she frowns, so conscious of her naked scalp, the loss of her long brown locks. It’s funny, really, that here at the end she should think about her thin cheeks and fragile skin, the way she knows her eyes have sunken back into her skull. It’s such a petty thing.

John pays her no mind and kisses her again, warm lips on her cheek. “You are still the most beautiful woman I know, Mrs. Stilinski,” he murmurs against her temple. His voice is strong and sure, and he’s so close Claudia can see the even pulse thrumming in the base of his neck. He really means it. God, how she loves this man.

And it’s that love that makes her push the words she desperately wishes she never had to utter off her tongue.

“Promise me,” she pleads. She grips John’s hand and looks straight into his eyes. “Promise me you’ll be happy again.”

John freezes, muscles rigid, spine stiff, lungs still. The way his face shudders and cracks into the most heartbreaking expression tells Claudia he knows what she means. “Claudia,” he begins, supplication in every inch of him. “Please. Don’t.”

But time is running out, sand through a sieve instead of an hourglass, and Claudia needs this, needs to make sure her family will be able to live on without her. “Please John,” she chocks out. One of her hands is running down Stiles’ back; the other is cupped around John’s cheek. “I know it’s going to hurt, but please don’t…don’t give up. You can start again, have a second chance. You have such a warm heart, love, and a brilliant mind. Don’t let sadness lay that all to waste.”

John starts to shake his head, back and forth, tears sliding down to wet her fingers. “Don’t talk like this Clauds,” he says thickly. “You’re gonna be fine. We’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna get out of this hospital soon, and you’re gonna see Stiles stumble his way into middle school and high school. And someday, he’ll take a girl to prom and you’ll be at the door to take a million pictures of them, even as they are trying to run away. Our brilliant boy will go to college and we’ll have the house to ourselves and go on vacations and be old and happy and—-” He breaks off with half of a sob and presses a kiss to the center of her palm.

 “I want that so much,” Claudia smiles, tears of her own trickling down her face. She tastes salt and the bitterness of her life. “That’s all I want, John. All of that, with you.”

“We’ll have it Clauds. We will.”

Claudia closes her eyes, and inhales shakily. If only. “Do you remember how we first met?” she asks suddenly. She feels John’s head tilt out of confusion, but he doesn’t ask where this is going.

“Course I do,” he whispers. “I have to say that was the best speeding ticket I’ve ever given in my life.”  

A laugh startles out of Claudia’s chest, like a bird released from a cage after a long captivity, fragile around the edges and hollow at the middle. “I still say that it was uncalled for.”

“You were going 60 in a 35.” 

“As I said, uncalled for.”

 John smiles down at her, eyes still wet, and says, “You were so beautiful, even all righteously angry and in a rush.” 

Claudia shakes her head, tries to recall the weight of her hair along her shoulders, and finds it’s a sensation she has lost to memory now. “Do you remember what I said when you handed me the ticket?”

This time, it’s John that laughs. “Yup. ‘Well thanks Officer Friendly. I hope I never see you again. Have a great day.’ I wonder where Stiles gets his mouth from again?” He squints at her in mock irritation but amusement dances around the corner of his mouth, the lines fanning out around his eyes. Claudia reaches out and touches the curve of his cheek.

“I was so pissed because I was late for work. And then you went and said, bold as hell, ‘I’m going to be Sheriff of these parts one day ma’am. So, you’ll be seeing a lot of me whether you like it or not.’”

“Well…maybe Stiles gets a little bit of his lip from me.”

“He gets all his best qualities from you,” she murmurs. Her eyes are starting to feel heavy. Time is slipping away. “His strength and courage and brilliance. He’ll be a hero one day, just like his daddy.”

John snorts. “I’m just a deputy, honey.”

Claudia’s eyes flutter open, and she lays her fingers over John’s chest, right where a sheriff’s badge would be. “You can still be what you want to, John. You can still be sheriff. I know you can.” Her eyes drift to the IV sticking out of the back of her hand, to her pale skin and stark blue veins. She signs, and turns away in disgust, can’t face the evidence of her mortality. John’s hand closes over hers.

 “It’s just medicine, sweetheart.” He kisses the IV gently. “It’s going to make you better.”

Claudia wishes, with all her remaining strength, that he is right. He isn’t, of course, but he can’t see it. And she can’t take this last vestige of happiness from him, the denial that is saving him so much pain.

If only for a few hours longer.

“Of course, John. Of course it will. But…just humor me please.” She looks into the face of the only man she’s ever truly loved, the father of her son, and begs, “Promise me, if something happens, you’ll pick it all up and go on again. Be happy. Play poker with the boys and become sheriff and raise our son right. Fall in love. Please, John. For me.”

She can see in his face that he wants to refuse, doesn’t even want to entertain this possibility (certainty), but the beeper along his belt suddenly goes off. His shift is starting. Time’s run out.

“John.”

Harried and having no time to argue, John leans down and presses a chaste kiss to her dry and cracked lips. “Ok. It’s not going to happen, but okay.”

Something unfurls in Claudia’s chest, and she subsides into her pillow. “Thank you,” she whispers, tears slipping out beneath her closed eyelids. “Thank you.”

 John talks about being back later for Stiles, says he’ll bring a later dinner in the middle of his shift to check up on her and take their son home. Claudia nods and hums, all the while silently crying, and when John stands framed in the doorway, the last thing she says to him is, “I love you John Stilinski. I love you.”

 Her husband looks back at her, and she memorizes the planes and lines of his face one final time. “I love you too, Clauds. I’ll be back soon.” He glances at the clock, takes in the time, and says, “A few hours at most. If you aren’t too tired, try and wait up for me okay. I’ll bring your favorite from our diner down the road.”

Claudia laughs and smiles and sobs but John’s beeper is going off again, and with one last goodbye, he’s gone.

 Stiles murmurs and babbles in his sleep against her collarbone, and Claudia clings to her baby boy as the dark creeps up on her. She whispers to him stories and poems and memories, brands her love for him into his skin with kisses and fervent words. He wakes long enough to smile at her sleepily and mumble, “Love you mommy.”

As she starts to drift, eyelids suddenly so heavy, bones made of lead, lungs and heart of cement, she whispers, “Take care of your father, sweetie. I love you both so much. Love you, love you, love…you…”

 ~*~*~*~*~

Claudia Stilinski dies at 9:02 PM on a rainy, cold, November night.

John Stilinski arrives at 9:05, drenched and panting, with a bag of lukewarm curly fries still clenched in a white-knuckled fist. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi! :D My tumblr: http://the-wild-wolves-around-you.tumblr.com/


End file.
